This I Believe

Throughout our lives we experience heartbreak, pain, and death. Time passes and the wounds we received may never heal and the pain may never dull, but we still go on with our lives. I believe that no matter what happens time passes in strange lurches and lulls, and every second may ache, but still it passes. Every tick of the second hand may ache like blood behind a bruise but we still live on through the pain.

Throughout our lives we will lose the people around us to death. Whether due to accidents, old age, or disease, we lose those whom we love. I have lost many family members to death but what hurts the most is when you realize that they will never be there again to smile and laugh with you, that their life is ended. Even though they are gone you know you must live on for them and be strong for them. Even though we lose those around us, the wounds heal, we cry less, but we are stronger from our pain.

I have been through heartbreak, pain, and loss and still here I am. Even though my heart has been broken, I can still love. I still have a life through the pain of my heart being torn in two and, altogether the pain never goes away, I am still here and my life has gone on. The heartbreak did not kill me like everyone said it would. My life did not stop or standstill when I was hurt, but the time passed on. Everyday I wake up in the morning and I can still smile about the little things or sometimes even bigger things. Time has passed and suddenly it has been three years since I began to pick up the broken pieces of my heart.

Sometimes doctors ask you to rate pain on a scale of one to ten, but that’s impossible. At that moment in time of the pain it is the most excruciating thing in the world. When you are in pain it’s the only thing you can think about. Later when you try to recall that pain it may seem trivial or as if you overreacted, but whether the pain is great or not time passes and the wounds heal, but the pain is always a memory, and never leaves. Fall of my senior year I hurt my knee in PE3 and all I could think of was how much it hurt. It turned out I tore my ACL and the story embarrasses me. Now I have to go through surgery and months physical therapy, and I know that the pain was worse than the embarrassment. My knee will heal with time but the pain was intolerable and will stay with me forever.

Some say time heals all wounds and that is true. Time all heals wounds but not all pain. Pain is remembered and is learned from. Just as we learn from our mistakes, we learn from our pains.

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Top 100 Essays USB Drive

This USB drive contains 100 of the top This I Believe audio broadcasts of the last ten years, plus some favorites from Edward R. Murrow's radio series of the 1950s. It's perfect for personal or classroom use! Click here to learn more.

This week’s essay

Growing up in the former Yugoslavia, lawyer Djenita Pasic enjoyed the peace of her religiously diverse country. But after the fall of communism and the outbreak of the Bosnian War, Pasic was forced to reevaluate her ideas about religion and tolerance. Click here to read her essay.